


find your way to fly

by starberrylemonade



Series: re-learning to fly [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Lunch date (1), M/M, Mentioned Tsukishima Kei, again i must grasp at straws for his characterization..., short and sweet, tenma being a chronic overthinker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 23:09:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20090329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starberrylemonade/pseuds/starberrylemonade
Summary: After lunch they take the train to where Akiteru practices with his team. Tenma gets to talk to the team and Akiteru gets to brag about how much his little brother has improved. It’s light-hearted and fun when they warm up, chatting about the work day and kids and home life domesticity.Things Tenma doesn’t have.





	find your way to fly

Tenma and Akiteru meet for lunch every week on Fridays.

The owner of the cafe downtown knows their names by now and as the bell on the door rings, gently announcing his presence, he hears a booming voice from the back yell

“Udai-kun! Table is all set up for ya!” 

He shifts his backpack on his shoulder and makes his way to the booth near the back, next to the window with the view of the TV (always playing volleyball matches) and settles down to wait. 

He’s gripping the edges of his jacket in anticipation at a particularly good save when Akiteru comes through the door. His bright laugh makes it to the back of the cafe easily, and his blond head is easy to spot in a sea of dark hair. His signature letterman jacket sits on his shoulders, and Akiteru wears it with pride. He sits down in front of Tenma with an overdramatic ‘oomph’ and gives him a smile as bright as the sun in greeting.  _ Beautiful. _

Tenma lets his hair fall forward to cover the redness he can feel creeping up his ears. 

“So how’s school going?” Akiteru asks. Tenma rolls his eyes.

“Don’t ask me like I’m a high schooler, you’re only a year older than me,” he spits back with absolutely no bite and sips his coffee with fake offense. 

Maybe he’s sipping the coffee to hide the fact that the blush has made it to his cheeks now. Maybe.

After lunch they take the train to where Akiteru practices with his team. Tenma gets to talk to the team and Akiteru gets to brag about how much his little brother has improved. It’s light-hearted and fun when they warm up, chatting about the work day and kids and home life domesticity. 

Things Tenma doesn’t have. 

He stops midway through his stretch, hand halfway to his toes. He’s spent the last few years of his life making it through school, struggling with himself over quitting volleyball, finally forced to confront his fears when Akiteru pulled him back onto the court kicking and screaming. And crying. He has so many regrets and he’s so out of practice that the one thing he loved the most is near foreign to him. Learning it all over again has been a process in and of itself, and he hasn’t been able to stop his hands shaking or his legs crying out in protest yet. Man, he misses being fifteen. 

“Udai-kun,” Akiteru calls. Tenma sits up abruptly from where he’d been near lying on the floor. Akiteru’s eyes are searching him carefully. Tsukishimas are extremely analytical, he learned, when the younger Tsukishima took one look at him and promptly announced ‘ah, you don’t play much anymore do you?’. Nice kid. Akiteru takes a step towards him and Tenma forces his heart rate to sink down to a normal level. 

“Let me set for you,” he suggests. This is Akiteru’s way of saying ‘get out of your head’ and distracting him. It works every time, apparently, as Tenma’s heartbeat goes atmospheric again as he nods faster than a regular human should. 

Akiteru finally gives up after about twenty when his teammates force him to come play, he can flirt with his boyfriend later (Tenma  _ refuses _ to look at the other man and drops his head down, hair completely covering his face). 

The game is pretty intense this time around, and Tenma actually has trouble keeping score for a part of it (but not because he was watching Akiteru, that’s stupid.) and has to take a rain check on a few points. The team tell him it’s okay, they’re not playing for points, they’re playing for the experience. He relaxes, finally not able to feel the old Ukai’s eyes on his back. 

Akiteru offers to clean up the gym which means Tenma has to stay behind as well (he doesn’t  _ have _ to, but it’s polite). They finally get the last ball in the cart and wheeled into the closet when Akiteru asks

“Are you free tomorrow?” 

The silence afterwards is deafening as Tenma’s mouth opens and closes like a dying fish. Their unofficial agreement never covered meeting outside once a week. Never covered weekends. Never covered…

“Like, as a date?”

Oh, if only the floor would swallow him whole!

Akiteru’s pale skin turns a pretty pink and Tenma can’t pull his eyes away as the man smiles shyly. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his letterman and his eyes shift around as he lets out a nervous laugh.

“Um...maybe? Only if you’d want to, that is.” His voice trails off near the end into a barely audible whisper but Tenma’s already reaching for his hand. He shoves his hand into one of the pockets and intertwines their fingers the best he can with their height difference.

He knows if he opens his mouth, the only thing that will come out is screaming. Akiteru seems to pick up on this and lets out another giggle. 

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

The walk to the train station is comfortably quiet. There’s something so beautiful in the sounds of the city at night, if you’re used to them. Cars rush by, and cats howl, and planes fly overhead, but that’s all background noise to the beating of Tenma’s heart in his ears. Akiteru swings their interlocked hands back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, to an invisible rhythm. Summer finds its way into the hazel of Akiteru’s eyes and he feels like he could fly. 

He does fly, three feet in the air, when Akiteru kisses his cheek goodbye at the station before getting on the train. 

**Author's Note:**

> Is this a series? Debatable. Its easy for me to write characters who haven't had much screentime cause i can do what i want w them ghldfjkgdj
> 
> Tumblr: starryeydsailor


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